Sneaky Spinach {A Book to Teach Kids About Making Healthy Food Choices}

I love spinach.  Like, I love, love, love it.  I make my salads with spinach, I saute it (with mushrooms and onions) and eat it as a side dish.  I even blend it up in my smoothies.  So yummy! Spinach tastes good and it's good for me (and you!).

Now, in case you're wondering why I'm blabbering on about spinach on a teaching blog, it's because I have a fun new book to share with you. Introducing, Sneaky Spinach!


About the Book
Sneaky Spinach is a sweet story about a little boy named Nick who refuses to eat his vegetables.  His favorite foods are basically anything classified as junk, and he's always sick and sluggish as a result.  His mom tries to convince him to eat his veggies, but he just won't do it.  Enter the spinach!  One day, some spinach leaves sneak into Nick's morning smoothie.  That day, he had more energy.  Each day, more and more spinach leaves sneak into his smoothie.  He gains more energy each day, and starts doing better in school.  When Nick eventually finds out that he's been eating spinach, and learns that it is helping him do better in school, he decides that he wants to add spinach to his smoothie every day.

About the Author
The author, Alexis Schulze, is the co-founder of Nekter Juice Bar.  Nekter is a restaurant and life style brand.  She helped found Nekter to fill a need for natural, pure juices. Their juices are unprocessed and do not included any added sugars or artificial flavors (as they should be).

When Alexis wrote this book, her aim was to encourage children and families to make healthier food and lifestyle choices. I love this!  Everyone can always use a good reminder to make healthy choices.  She also donates $4 of each book sold to the Festival of Children Foundation. How awesome is that?

In the Classroom
I shared this book with my students as a read aloud, and they really enjoyed it!



They giggled when the spinach sneaked into Nick's smoothie each morning.  I used the book to review cause and effect (during the read aloud).  It's perfect for making those kinds of connections.  After the reading, we talked about making healthy choices and why it's important to eat foods like fruits and veggies.  We recently had a chef come to our class and teach us about another super green food (kale) and we were able to connect this book to some of the things the chef taught us.

 There are a million different ways you can use this book in the classroom. But, here are my top three:
  1. Share it as a read aloud (like I did).  Read alouds should be purposeful, and this text definitely has purpose.  We should always be looking for ways to encourage our students to make healthy choices and as we all know, sometimes messages like this click best when a book is involved.
  2. Integrate it into math.  After reading the book, follow the recipe in the back of the book and make your class a smoothie.  They will get practice with measuring, and they can taste for themselves just how tasty a smoothie with spinach can be.
  3. Use it to teach cause and effect.  At the beginning of the book, Nick eats poorly and is always sick.  Each day one more spinach leaf than the day before sneaks into Nick's smoothie and he experiences a new type of success. n Students could use these details to identify cause and effect in the text.
For more ideas, download the free reader's guide HERE.  :)

Happy reading!


I received this product for free to provide an honest review.  All opinions expressed within this post are genuine and impartial.


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